BSM celebrated its first all-school Mass of the year Thursday morning, with special guest Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the archbishop of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Archdiocese, who said Mass.
Last spring, President Danielle Hermanny met with the archbishop to discuss the addition of a 6th grade, and invited him to celebrate Mass at BSM. “I told him we would love to have him visit BSM, so he offered to celebrate our opening school Mass,” Hermanny said.
During the Mass, the archbishop reflected on the recent tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. He provided students with powerful wisdom on how to keep going in dark times. “It’s important we continue to pray for the Annunciation community and that students look for ways of shining Christ’s light to others around them,” Hebda said.
Both campus minister Mike Jeremiah and Hermanny spoke before Mass, thanking the archbishop for coming, especially during this hard time. “We offer up this Mass for the entire Annunciation community,” Hermanny said at the beginning of Mass.
The archbishop has been to BSM previously to celebrate Mass, and said he was happy to be welcomed back. “I was very grateful to be invited and to help show the connection between BSM and the archdiocese,” Hebda said.
The BSM Board of Directors was also invited to attend Mass, along with parents of students, and a reception was held afterward. “I love Catholic education, so I think it was very special having the Archbishop here to kick off the school year,” board member and former BSM parent Martha Long said.
“It was really special to have the archbishop provide us with his leadership in our faith-based community,” BSM Board of Directors past chair Tom Lynch said.
Hebda also invited students to embrace their education and live their faith in all their classes and activities at BSM. “It was great for the archbishop to kick off the school year with a beautiful message about being faithful and present in class and their everyday lives,” Brother Michael Kadow, a representative of the Christian Brothers on the BSM Board of Directors, said.